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Kalmah - For The Revolution

Published May 09 2008


*
=Staff's pick

For The Revolution*
Dead Man's Shadow
Holy Symphony War*
Wings Of Blackening*
Ready For Salvation*
Towards The Sky
Outremer
Coward
Like A Slave


Genre Melodic Death Metal
Pekka Kokko
Vocals
Tracks 9
Pekka Kokko
Guitar
Runningtime 44 Min.
Antti Kokko
Guitar
Label Spikefarm Records
Timo Lehtinen
Bass
Release 24 April 2008
Janne Kusmin
Drums
Country Finland
Marco Sneck
Keyboard
Similar artists Children Of Bodom, Mors Principium Est

The Kokko brothers have yet again returned from the swamp to deliver us their very own brand of melodeath. For The Revolution is Kalmah's fifth album and the new effort can be classified as a natural continuation of their previous works. The closest comparison is still Children Of Bodom with melodic guitars to contrast the growling vocals and a considerable usage of keyboards.

My very own experience of Kalmah is, despite the melodic approach, that it always takes some time to get a grip of the songs and the new one isn't an exception to that rule. This problem is mainly due to the fact that Pekka Kokko's thin vocals fall in the background and leave the guitars to be your map and guide to find the red thread of the compositions. This is a bit confusing to start with but after numerous listening sessions the greatness of the song writing slowly but surely sinks in and stays firm afterwards.

For The Revolution's biggest assets are the guitars and on this album the guitar work is better than ever before and the melodic leads and catchy riffs literally swarms the album. It's a shame that Kalmah isn't in possession of a vocalist with a bit more depth and punch since that should grant the sound much more diversity. The chanting vocals that can be found on the title track and Holy Symphony War is a nice addition that I would like to see more of in the future. Ready For Salvation is a track that in another way prevents the album from being far too repetitive since it's a bit slower and melodic than the rest. The guitar melodies on this track somewhat reminds me of their countrymen Ensiferum actually.

This is yet another solid effort from Kalmah but to reach the upper level of the scale they still have work to do regarding the diversity and the vocals. An improvement of these two things would make Kalmah something extremely interesting instead of were they are now; one of many great bands in the genre out there today.

See also review of: 12 Gauge , The Black Waltz

Performance
Originality
Production
Vocals
Songwriting

7

6

7

5

8

 
Summary



7 chalices of 10 - Hawk


Related links:

www.kalmah.com
www.myspace.com/kalmah